Seven Handle Circus:
Formed in 2010, the Seven Handle Circus are a six-piece Georgia band traveling across the land, pushing the limits of human endurance to send each crowd into a dancing and partying frenzy. They have been critically acclaimed as "Bad Ass Bluegrass" and "a brilliant little string band." They have been sharing stages with noteworthy bluegrass acts such Chatham County Line, Mountain Heart, Packway Handle Band and The Gourds, as well as platinum-selling rappers Yung Joc and T Pain, and were recently invited to play at The Fox Theater in Atlanta by Mumford & Sons [more...]

The Whiskey Gentry:
Paste Magazine was dead-on when they called The Whiskey Gentry a "toe-tapping, steamrolling kind of band, its fingers picking deep into fields of bluegrass, feet stomping in line with a punk-inspired kick drum." Formed in 2009 by husband and wife duo Lauren Staley and Jason Morrow, The Whiskey Gentry is a group of seasoned veterans—to put things mildly, some of the finest pickers and musicians the Southeast has to offer. A recent finalist in the Chris Austin Songwriting Competition held at MerleFest [more...]

Mayer Hawthorne grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, just outside of Detroit, and vividly remembers, as a child, driving with his father and tuning the car radio in to the rich soul and jazz history the region provided. "Most of the best music ever made came out of Detroit," claims the singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, who counts Isaac Hayes, Leroy Hutson, Mike Terry, [more...]

Celebrating their 20th anniversary as modern day rulers of old school funk, the seven-piece Brooklyn-based juggernaut Lettuce drops their third studio album Fly-a decidedly raging slab of relentless groove, hyper-charged syncopation and psychedelicized soul anthems. Having blown up stages from coast to coast last year, ranging from The Fillmore in SF to Terminal 5 in NYC, Bear [more...]

Far more than on any of the Drive-By Truckers' previous albums, Go-Go Boots rises
like smoke from the old Muscle Shoals country-and-soul sound. Having recorded with
Bettye LaVette and Booker T. Jones, and having spent a lifetime listening to classic soul
albums by Bobby Womack, Tony Joe White, and especially Eddie Hinton, it was inevitable
that the Truckers eventually [more...]

Moon Taxi is one of those rare bands that unites musical ingenuity with thoughtful lyrics and still somehow manages to wildly entertain and thrill a crowd. Their new record, Cabaret, is a layered, multi-dimensional endeavor that displays the band's maturing sense of their own musical identity. A follow-up to their live album, Live Ride, Cabaret illustrates the challenges of [more...]

With the release of their live, 2-disc album/DVD "Tell Your Friends" (Ropeadope Records), Snarky Puppy has gone from an underground secret to one of the most internationally respected names in instrumental music. The 3-time Dallas Observer Music Award winning group ("Best Jazz Act" 2008, 2009, 2010) has, over the last four years of touring, gained a reputation for putting [more...]

Galactic is a collaborative band with a unique format. It's a stable quintet that plays together with high musicianship. They've been together so long they're telepathic. But though the band hasn't had a lead singer for years, neither is it purely an instrumental group. Galactic is part of a diverse community of musicians, and in their own studio, with Mercurio and Ellman producing, [more...]

Mickey Hart is best known for his nearly three decades as an integral part of an extraordinary expedition into the soul and spirit of music, disguised as the rock and roll band the Grateful Dead. As half of the percussion tandem known as the Rhythm Devils, Mickey and Bill Kreutzmann transcended the conventions of rock drumming. Their extended polyrhythmic excursions were highlights [more...]

Pioneers in the genres of funk, soul, and rock music, George Clinton and his legendary band Parliament-Funkadelic have enjoyed success in touring and on radio (thirteen Top Ten R&B hits, including six #1's) for over five decades. Both Clinton and P-Funk have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and are recognized as some of the most influential artists in music [more...]

Ott was doomed to be a teenager in the cultural wasteland that was the mid-1980′s provincial England. After a brief period wandering aimlessly through the hairsprayed deserts of New Romanticism and poodle-rock he found refuge in the warm, inviting sounds of Scientist, King Tubby, LKJ, and Prince Far-I and the effortless grace of European experimentalists Neu! and Kraftwerk. [more...]

Most artists would bristle at the term self-indulgent, but Keller Williams often invokes it in describing his own approach to music. To Williams, being self-indulgent means creating music that satisfies him-if he likes what he's produced, he figures, then his audience is more likely to embrace it too. If he's not happy with it, why would they be? And so, when Williams [more...]